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The investment sales market has hit a rough patch due to the credit freeze-up, but despite this, Lee & Associates announced today it is launching an investment sales arm, to be dubbed Lee Investment Services Group. The new group will work in all product types, including office, industrial, retail and multi-family, and will be headquartered in Downtown Los Angeles. Patrick Benton (pictured), former managing director of corporate real estate for Countrywide Financial, will serve as president of the new entity, while Matt Sullivan, formerly of Colliers, will join Lee ISG as founding principal and managing director. Benton said despite the…

A 58-story Waldorf=Astoria Hotel and Residences has been announced for Philadelphia, set to open in 2012. The $420 million mixed-use project will be co-developed by Mariner Commercial Properties Inc. and Gatehouse Capital Corp. The hotel–to be managed by an affiliate of the Hilton Hotels Corp.–will be located at the northeast corner of 15th and Chestnut Streets. Tim Mahoney, president & CEO of Mariner, and Brook Lenfest acquired the site in 2000. The 670-foot-tall structure (pictured) will be the city’s sixth-tallest building, and will contain 175 guest rooms. The hotel lobby, on Chestnut Street, will feed into a sky lobby 155…

It’s official: the economy is contracting. U.S. GDP shrunk at an annualized rate of 0.3 percent during 3Q08, mostly as consumers decided that they needed to do less shopping. How long will the contraction continue? It’s anyone’s guess, but if it continues at the current pace through 1Q09, that would be the worst recession since the mid-1970s. At this point, the nation might be lucky if the current slump were merely as bad as the ’70s, and not like that grim period of time nearly 80 years ago that rhymes with “recession.” Still, the GDP numbers were better than expected–economists…

The Fed came through with an expected interest rate cut today, anticipation of which seems to have inspired yesterday’s 890-point advance of the Dow Jones index. Despite the slashing of the federal funds rate–from 1.5 percent to 1.0 percent–stocks remained relatively unchanged in the immediate wake of the announcement. Investors may have been cowed by the Fed’s accompanying statement, which acknowledged a drastic decrease in consumer spending. Or maybe the increasingly bi-polar market’s reserves of optimism have simply become tapped out for now. Yesterday’s gain was the largest point gain in the history of the index, and in ordinary times…

Centerline Capital Group, a subsidiary of Centerline Holding Company has announced it closed the last of nine multi-family housing loan transactions. All loans were done with Fannie Mae under its DUS program on behalf of a single borrower for a total of $131 million.  Centerline provided the refinancing for a portfolio of eight South County apartment properties that allowed the borrower to pay off first and second mortgages on those properties and free up equity to acquire and complete the rehabilitation of a ninth apartment complex. The original eight multifamily housing developments included: 149 units in Torrance for $23.9 million,…

For those who can secure financing in the currently chilly lending climate, there are good deals to be had, and a joint venture involving Alex Brown Realty and Hempel Properties was able to take advantage of the real estate market’s declining price tags with the acquisition of the 194,300-square-foot Rand Tower in Downtown Minneapolis. The partners shelled out $10.2 million to acquire the 26-story office building (pictured) from Gaughan Cos., which had owned the building since purchasing it in 2004 for $11.2 million. Carrying the address of 527 Marquette Ave. South, the Art Deco-style Rand Tower was originally developed in…

CB Richard Ellis Realty Trust has announced the acquisition of Maskew Retail Park, a 144,400-square-foot high-quality retail center in the city of Peterborough, U.K., for $51 million, the firm reported. CBRE Realty Trust’s management team worked with the acquisitions team from CBRE Investors in London to acquire the property. Maskew Retail Park is a recently completed development, located at Soke Parkway and Bourges Rd., the major thoroughfare north from the town center, and situated within the major retailing district of Peterborough with street frontage along Maskew Ave.  The property consists of two retail blocks and is fully leased on a long-term basis to…

Duke Realty Corp. has leased a nearly 98,000-square-foot office building at Camp Creek Business Center, located three miles west of Hartsfield Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, to the Federal Aviation Administration.  The facility, located at 1500 Centre Parkway, will accommodate approximately 400 Federal Aviation employees in multiple departments.  The company plans to occupy the building in early 2009. The FAA lease brings Camp Creek Business Center’s office space, which totals 375,000 square feet, to 94 percent leased.  This latest deal represents the third significant transaction with government-related entities in the past 12 months.  Earlier this year, Duke completed a 47,000-square-foot…

Over the past year, the U.S. hotel sector has suffered from limited liquidity, resulting in part from the shutdown of the debt securitization markets but also from the general banking crisis. This subsequently lowered the leverage available to fund transactions, making it more difficult for investors to value assets, which consequently disconnected buyers and sellers. Based on Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels’ proprietary database, which tracks hotel transactions $10 million and above, U.S. hotel transaction volume during the first three quarters of 2008 reached $7.5 billion, down 80 percent from the same period in 2007. Portfolio transactions slowed the most, accounting…

Uncertainty in the global financial system has exacerbated the credit crunch, further limiting the availability of credit to private and institutional apartment investors. But despite the roller coaster ride on Wall Street that sent global stock market indices on a downward spiral, the Federal Reserve’s announcement that it would infuse $250 billion into the nation’s largest financial institutions, coupled with its decision to bail out government-sponsored entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, could spur a recovery by as early as late 2009. Tighter lending standards will prevail in the foreseeable future, and spreads are expected to remain volatile through the…